How’s everyone’s weekend going? Thanks for spending a portion of it with the Six.
Monday this past week, the state of Illinois passed House Bill 2789.
The bill declares it to be policy to “encourage and protect the freedom of libraries and library systems to acquire materials without external limitation and to be protected against attempts to ban, remove, or otherwise restrict access to books or other materials."
It’s being referred to as the “Anti-Book Ban Bill” and basically threatens to withhold funding to public libraries that by their definition, “prohibit the practice of banning books or other materials.”
Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, consumed with personal aggrandizement from progressive compadres, told a reporter (not a local one, but a chosen national outlet), “this isn’t about taking things away…I believe in freedom, freedom to read, to understand and to learn. We should let librarians do as they have always done and choose what books to be put on the shelves.”
Who knew Pritzker to be such a freedom fighter and champion for librarians?
He’s not. He’s still a pathetic pudge boy longing for acceptance at the cool kid’s table. As an adult, he’s got money and power––unchecked––and using it for retribution against the bullies who made fun of his belly and lisp as a kid. The anti-book ban bill and staged press conference at Harold Washington Library in downtown Chicago is another opportunity for him to leverage state-sponsored media to elevate his status amongst DNC elites.
(We haven’t seen so much video footage of libraries since “The Breakfast Club.” For a moment, I thought I caught a glimpse of Dick Vernon buying a Ho-Ho at the vending machine.)
This embarrassing piece of legislation is latest example of the further erosion of parental rights and insatiable furtherance of government influence––and their agencies––into our daily lives.
“Communities hire the librarians…they are experts in this…” Pritzker babbled out on Monday.
Yes, librarians are experts. Let them make recommendations. Local control. Why is Springfield spying on book shelves in Hinsdale or Downers Grove or Libertyville?
(I have the same objection in Florida and similar strong-armed legislation passed by the Republican-controlled House and Senate in that state. Oligarchies are dangerous regardless of ideological alignment.)
The entire exercise is an absurd display of regime flexing. Pritzker’s deference to bureau over paternity is another slap in the face towards traditional American values.
Deciding what book should be in a library is a judgment call made by a paid expert. People make judgments on all sorts of things across all sorts of industries each and every day. Just as a museum curator decides on a piece of art or a purchasing agent on a crate of goods, so does a librarian on a book.
Saying no is not a ban. It’s a no. That’s why the person has their job, to say no.
Pritzker wants to take away our right to say no. He’s once again saying “I know better than you” on how we live our lives.
And that’s the opposite of freedom.
Let’s proceed with the Six.
1. Explosive Coronavirus Revelation: It Did Originate In The Wuhan Lab.
It’s taken three years but we are finally seeing The Great Grift exposed. On the same day the Associated Press ran a story on the billion-dollar Covid relief-fund fraud, the newsletter Public published a piece citing government sources in naming a Chinese scientist as “patient zero” of the Covid-19 pandemic. The article also cites bureaucratic indifference to investigating a lab-origin theory sating how, “numerous federal agencies appear to have designed their probes of Covid-19’s origins so as to discount the possibility of lab origin in advance.” This story should have been picked up by all mainstream media news outlets, but, of course, those don’t exist anymore. It likely will be up to House Republicans to address the revelation––or GOP presidential primary candidates––as no one else will touch it.
2. The Vampires Can Have Everything But Our Love.
Super-rich people have everything but public love, the kind that’s genuine and forever. This essay about cancel culture begins by lambasting $500 million man David Zaslav, the president and CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery whose tin-eared Boston University commencement speech last month was mercilessly drowned out by chants, boos and heckles. The wealthy’s “performative efforts to earn [love] are pitiful,” writes the author of the How Things Work newsletter in an excellent piece. “But their desire never ebbs. That respect would amount to immortality for them.” Regardless of social or economic status, anyone giving a commencement address should expect a healthy dose of harassment, as every minute at the podium by the speaker droning on about “the next chapter in your lives” is one less minute the graduates––and family members––can spend at post-graduation festivities.
Are we failing today's children by not giving them "useful" childhoods? "It is difficult to blame young adults for thinking that work is fake and meaningless if we prescribe fake and meaningless work for the first two decades of their existence"—that is, an ever-increasing amount of education that often has limited practical application to the life they will lead once they graduate. Let’s not forget the reason the American Public School System was first invented at the turn of the 20th century—to develop factory workers. We are six or seven decades beyond the relevancy of that model. The encouragement of outside interests, augmented by some structured educational apparatus, would better serve a large section of current and future generations of young people rather than “knock it off and get back to school.”
4. What Happened to Heather Mayer?
I just binge-watched a four-episode true crime docuseries on HBO called “Burden of Proof.” Fabulous series; it follows a North Carolina man attempting to find out how his sister went missing in the late 1980’s (her body was never found and no one was charged with a crime). The relative-in-pursuit-of-justice angle always brings a fascinating narrative thrust to any true crime story. Here’s another one via the Minneapolis Star-Tribune: Police called Heather Mayer’s now 40-years-old death a suicide, but her mother refused to accept that answer. The reporter follows the mother on the twisty, disturbing pursuit of the truth—and that even more elusive goal, justice.
5. The NCAA Has A Hot Girl Problem.
The hay is out of the barn as it pertains to the professionalization of college athletics. Two-year old legislation approving name, image and likeness compensation has some “amateur” athletes making millions while others are settling for three-figure monthly cost-of-attendance stipends. The marketplace––the ultimate meritocracy––is deciding and with women, it’s deciding that looks matter over performance. This article via The Free Press takes a look at the Cavinder Twins, former collegiate basketball players who are leveraging their “hotness” and building a multi-million dollar influencer empire. Predictably, there are those who believe the sisters’ body-image pursuit of riches is not helpful in legitimizing women’s athletics while others see their rise to fortune and glory “was really about their evolution from athlete to owner, from playing someone else’s game on someone else’s court in someone else’s uniform to being CEO of their own company. Like Michael Jordan in Air, except without being world-class athletes.”
I can’t remember being upset enough after a fast food experience to punch out an angry review (OK, full disclosure, I came close when Chick-fil-A threw one to many pickles on my sandwich last week…) If I were to give in to my rage and publish a Yelp one-star review, I’d hope that in order to give it an air of brevity, an actor would read the review and post it on YouTube. If not laughing in the first 5-10 seconds of this video, you’ll be right after the actor shrieks, “shut it down,” in a hilarious Melissa McCarthy-style satire.
Thanks for reading everybody and Happy Father’s Day to all dad Six readers.
Have a suggestion for The Sunday Six? Send email to jonjkerr@gmail.com.